1866. | and Botanical Congress. 449 
Brussels, and Mr. Verschaffelt, of Ghent, stood pre-eminent. But to 
both English and foreign horticulturists, the public owes hearty 
thanks for a sight of so many rare and beautiful plants. When it 
is remembered that cultivators prize such plants quite as much as 
artists prize choice and beautiful pictures, the expense connected 
with their culture and transportation, and that they must necessarily 
suffer more than works of art, when shown to great crowds, by the 
conditions to which they are exposed, the noble emulation which 
could forget all personal and selfish considerations, and prompt to 
their exhibition on a rare occasion like the present, will be under- 
stood and acknowledged. The public indeed appeared thoroughly to 
appreciate this floral display, so that instead of four days the Council 
decided that it should be kept open for nine days. 
On the evening of the opening day a banquet was held in 
Guildhall, the Lord Mayor presiding, to which 100 distinguished 
foreigners were invited as guests. 
After the usual loyal toasts had been duly honoured, Sir Went- 
worth Duilke proposed the health of the foreign visitors, and 
especially Professor De Candolle, the President of the Botanical 
Congress. Professor De Candolle returned thanks in the French 
language. He said the unhappy state of things on the Continent 
had prevented many foreign botanists and horticulturists from 
coming. “What science wants above all is liberty, not only 
political liberty, which is to a certain extent very necessary ; but, 
above all, that hberty which is accorded to the individual by public 
opinion. Those who seek for scientific truth require to be pro- 
tected by the public, even more than by a free political system. 
Science prospers when allowed this freedom, and then neither revo- 
lutions nor war can stop its onward progress.” 
The Botanical Congress held its first session on the 23rd of 
May, in the Raphael Cartoon Rooms, in the South Kensington 
Museum. It consisted of about 130 representatives from foreign 
countries—France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Russia, Italy, 
Switzerland, Portugal, and America being each represented in the 
Congress by one or more members; Professor Alphonse De Can- 
dolle, from Geneva, presiding. After the introductory address, 
which was delivered in the French language by the president, 
papers were read by the various botanists, British and foreign, in 
their own language, discussions occasionally following the reading 
